Steve Cochran lived his life with an exclamation point and his untimely death was punctuated by a question mark. As a result, Cochran is often remembered more for his off-screen escapades and for his macabre demise than for his legacy of acting roles. And, as an actor, he's often dismissed as a B-movie bad guy who appeared primarily in noir films, although he also played sympathetic roles in westerns, war dramas and even musicals. Cochran also guest-starred in episodes of TV classics such as The Twilight Zone, in addition to producing, writing and directing films for his own company.
I was always vaguely aware of Steve Cochran through my interest in classic films. However, what little I knew about him came mostly from sources like the campy Mysteries and Scandals show that used to air on the E! cable network. Since Cochran had a reputation as a "notorious womanizer" and had died mysteriously aboard his schooner in the Pacific at age 48, his story seemed tailor-made for Mysteries and Scandals, which employed interviews, public domain footage and cheesy filmed reenactments to examine the lives of tragic celebs.
"Steve Cochran stormed through life like a raging tempest. But even the strongest storms don't last long," was how the show's sardonic host, A. J. Benza, summed up Cochran's life.
And, for years, that's about all I knew of Steve Cochran, until I happened to see him in an episode of the classic TV series Naked City last summer.
Cochran played a self-possessed gambler who attracts the unwanted scrutiny of both a killer and the cops when he witnesses a murder at an after-hours poker game. He must also deal with the arrival of his new Italian bride, a spirited young woman whom he married by proxy only to settle a debt he owed to her father and so she could legally immigrate to the US.
Cochran quietly dominated every scene he was in. I suddenly discovered a "new" sigh guy.
Over the past year, I've tried to find out as much as I could about this arresting actor. Unfortunately, a lot of what I found online was of the lurid Mysteries and Scandals variety. However, I did finally locate an excellent overview of Steve's life and career here.
I also found the following excerpt from the autobiography of actress Virginia Mayo, who worked with Steve in several films:
"It was after Wonder Man that I met a man who would become a dear friend for all the rest of my life, and his life, too, right up until he died. His name was Steve Cochran and I loved him. (Like a brother.) He was tall, and in spite of the fact that he photographed as if he was a really big man, he wasn't. Steve was a man with a slight frame, had unusually dark, deeply smoldering eyes, thick, dark eyebrows, black hair, and was often cast as a gangster or a rough, hard man. Steve was none of those things in real life. He was polite and sensitive, and very kind. But, indeed, he was extremely sexy and women just couldn't get enough of him. I loved acting with him and we went on to make many films together, including the famous White Heat with Jimmy Cagney in 1949."
Next time: The gentler side of a tough guy.
